Get to Know the Mothers of the Future

How does the girl in our country live today?

On what foundations do we build and nourish her personality?

What are her views on life...? On learning? On marriage? On dress? On religion? Etc...

This is what I wished to learn by studying the daily life of a group of our girls. There is no doubt that the answers to these questions differ according to the milieu to which each one belongs. A Beirut girl, for example, lives a life different from that of a girl who lives in a village in north Lebanon. Yet pausing over a few of these examples helps us to understand aspects of the mentality of the new generation and to judge the future of Lebanon twenty years hence.

"The Woman's Voice" will begin presenting this new series, which will show readers a clear picture of how our girls live today, without thereby taking sides with one opinion or condemning another.

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Samia Salim Saab is one of those girls born with a golden spoon in her mouth. She lives in a home well supplied with parental care and comfortable circumstances. She and her four siblings — Nabila, Raja, Omar, and Khalid — have been given ample scope for education and for the strengthening of each one's personality, in a milieu founded on mutual understanding. Her mother, Mrs. Najla, described this to me, saying: "I try to be to my children a mother and a friend at once, and I take care that each of us in the house respects the freedom and the opinions of the others."

Samia enjoys a strong, cheerful personality, and always seems busy in her comings and goings between home and school. After passing the first part of the baccalaureate class at the Protestant College in Beirut, she preferred to enroll this year at the American College for Girls, where a girl is relatively freed from the nightmare of theoretical studies and is offered various applied subjects suited to her general inclination. So she entered the Freshman class, and then joined the arts-and-crafts club, where in her free hours, under the supervision of a skilled teacher, she trains in engraving, carving, and drawing. She said to me, as she showed me samples of handiwork she had made with her own hands: "I confess I am not the ideal of a girl in my studies; my grades are about average. I do not like living among scientific books, nor do I want to be a 'Madame Curie' in the future. My first desire is art. So I shall content myself with one more year of study at school, and after that devote myself to specializing in drawing and to practicing the piano and rhythmic dancing."

It appears that her social life is bound to the traditions of family and milieu. She goes out to parties and visits only in the company of her sister or her brother, and dances only rarely, at family gatherings. I asked her mother the reason for this, which some consider old-fashioned, and she said: "We are not Europeans, that a girl among us should be raised free, far from the traditions of her milieu. Yet I do not use methods of scolding and control over my daughter's movements; rather I try to instill in her a spirit of responsibility, not toward her family alone, but toward herself. I will not hide from you that Samia may sometimes harden in her opinion on a matter of which I do not approve; but I try to persuade her, calmly and tactfully, to give it up — that is, unless she persuades me with her arguments and her adroitness!"...

I asked Samia her opinion of our young men today, and she told me that she does not much regret not going about with them, because many of them care for nothing but dancing, merriment, and flirtation, and a girl can rarely hold a balanced, serious conversation with one of them. I asked her about the man she would prefer for her future, and she answered: she wants a mature, cultured man belonging to her own community, and possessed of some material means, so that she may devote herself to her housework instead of working outside the home to help him. And she assured me of the necessity of getting to know the man of her future, and of keeping company with him so as to test him, before her choice falls upon him!

I noticed that Samia is careful to look elegant in her appearance. She has a special fondness for choosing a dress's trimmings and accessories. She says that an embroidered silk kerchief, or a beautiful necklace, or a colored belt is enough to make a dress look elegant and attractive. Her winter wardrobe consists of two dresses for parties and formal occasions, and two everyday dresses with four skirts and several different blouses for school days. This supply is renewed once every two years. And I saw that part of her clothing stays serviceable longer, because she chooses simple styles.

Her expenses are subject to a limited budget. Her father pays her school fee of 800 Lebanese lira in full, apart from the cost of her clothes, while she receives five Lebanese lira a week, which she spends as follows:

1: The price of a cinema ticket once a week.

2: The cost of drawing supplies for the arts-and-crafts club at school.

3: The price of a ticket to attend a concert or a theatrical program.

Samia told me her opinion on religion: "I am not a fanatic, and I truly believe that all religions are one, and that religion is how you deal with others. Although I am Druze by confession, I am wholly ignorant of the principles of my religion and of how its rites are practiced. Yet every night before sleeping I offer a short prayer of thanks to the Creator for His daily blessings."

As for politics, she rarely concerns herself with it, and seldom reads the newspapers. When I asked her about the extent of her attachment to the country, she answered: "I feel no enthusiasm for my homeland Lebanon, because the errors in which it flounders today do not help a girl like me to serve it or to grow enthusiastic for its good!"

Samia is inclined to reading books and magazines, especially French ones; yet she showed her liking for the writings of Gibran Khalil Gibran and Tawfiq al-Hakim, and then for reading Miss Rose Ghorayeb's articles in "The Woman's Voice." She told me that Miss Ghorayeb's skill in teaching her at school, and her simple modern style of writing, deserved the credit for leading her to read Arabic books.

I asked her whether she does any housework, and she said: "From time to time I may arrange the flowers in their vases or make a cake, but I do no steady household work — sometimes I do not even make my bed; not because I am negligent, but because my mother is responsible for running the house, and we have two maids who attend to most of its tasks."

And she said of her view of life:

"Life is sweet, and as long as I keep smiling at it, it will always keep smiling at me. I am not at all afraid of the future. My confidence in myself is great enough that with it I can face the accidents of fate, good and evil!"